Summary: Publisher Electronic Arts has announced two expansion packs for Spore, the company's popular and unique simulator. The first expansion, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, is coming out on November 18, whereas the tentatively named "Space stage expansion pack" is due out later this spring. Read Full Article

I'm apathetic about the first, but I am definitely going to be looking into the second...At the same time I'm sad, they're going with small expansions, I was hoping for large style Sims expansions at least.

I wish they would expand upon all of the stages somehow and not just the Space stage. I feel like the game is just basic versions of games that have already been done. It's very easy to power through all of the stages.

the one thing that kept me from scooping up Spore when it came out was the inability to beam down and explore the worlds in space mode. all you could do was fly over and manipulate them. what if i want to get rough with some creatures on a personal level, or make friends by being a kind of ambassador or something?

This is like a bad joke. It's not like there isn't already enough "cute" things in the game. They got negative reactions from the female test groups and fans of The Sims so they made everything cute. Why don't we just make it H&M cute stuff so they can sellout this too.

And more Space stage.. Because Tribal isn't 10 minutes long, and the water stage wasn't cut completely. There are other things that could have let me perhaps gain respect or reinstall the game but neither of these expansions are them.

100 new creature building components does not an expansion pack make. I'm on the verge of calling this a blatant insult to loyal Spore fans but I will wait for them to announce a price. 10USD would be fair. Standard 25USD for a typical expansion pack would not.

I'm very interested in the space stage expansion pack. I have spent the bulk of my time there and have set Spore aside specifically because I've run out of things to do in space. Even so, it dang well better be worth the price of admission.

and all we got was merely a part of what they really wanted to release

but EA in their endless greed and nonexistent care for costumers decided to GUT the complete game on purpose, release an imcomplete game for full price, and then CHARGE you for the parts they removed on purpose

SCREW YOU EA! i fell for it once for buying a game that i had really high hopes for. i wont get fooled again with these "expansions"

What annoys me about this is the fact I thought Spore was going to be about eco-systems and developing creatures. Instead we get some cheap mini-games which are fun for the first 10 minutes, the civilisation stage was so god awful I found it immensly difficult to get through it simply because it bored me.

I found the space stage to be the only really good part of spore and the only bit I felt they put much effort in to. But I didn't get the game because of that... If they wanted to make some space game they should of focused on that aspect completely rather than pulling as along about creature development.

And the negativity of the internet continues. Keep shouting and whining in the corner of the room though, people have no choice but to look because you just won't shut up.

Typical "rebellion" crap though, kids trying to sound cool because something is insanely popular and they want to sound like they're above it.

It's funny to watch the people who don't get Spore complain about it. Why don't you go play Gears of War or Halo where you belong? The adults are busy being creative and using our imaginations where as you want it all force-fed to you.

I also thought this title was a let down.. first couple of days were great, but after that? not much to it.. such a shame... i pre-ordered it too... by the way, did anybody else find that it didn't really matter what buildings you built in the civ stage? you could just build anything next to each other, and it didn't really affect the game play. I was careful at first, but then realised that it didn't seem to affect how i conquered the planet.

WTF!!! they expand on the ones single stage thats actually a real stage?! They need to add more to the other stages, tribal and civ is pathetic, and creatures is ridiculous would much rather pay dna points to upgrade my brain than move around the world to find bigger creatures cuz apparently i am the only one evolving to then "ally" or kill them of, 2 choices

The Creepy and Cute stuff pack doesn't seem worth a purchase. The Space Stage one I'd have to see to judge whether buying it is a reasonable decision. EA has a habit of making crappy, useless expansions.

Totally looking forward to the space expansion. It seems like the next logical step for the game.

"However, if you like creating strange looking creatures, buildings, vehicles etc, please enjoy yourself, but don't try to belittle those who were looking for a little more than a colouring book."

Oh, the irony is delicious =)

Anyway, while I enjoy strategic style games as much as the next gamer, it's nice to see a game focus on non-objective based gameplay mechanics such as creation. Making a truly creative creature in Spore is just as (if not more) difficult than the strategic elements present in more traditional games.

haven't touched spore since it's release date. Even though you're in charge of evolution, it doesn't have the same feeling that you are god that Sim City had. I got to the space age, tried a few "missions" and found it incredibly boring.

I found spore to be a big disappointment, advertised you can create anything you could imagine. In reality it was never delivered. The lack of hair/fur is a huge part in creature creating. You have an idea of what u want and it turns out to be something else. I wanted to create Critters from the horror movie, no hair which couldn't be possible. Also wanted to create Gremlins also from the horror movie, no hair but still couldn't make them look that close. Cant create human looking creatures or little green/gray aliens. No wings for creatures which kinda sucks, no terradactyl. Facial detail lacked as well. They limit what you can create which goes against what they said you can do. Missions are so boring too and wtf is up with the no audio dialog? I dont play a game to read a novel. Hopefully they include what the game lacks in the expansions.

ha. i said from day one of the game release that there seemed to be no reason not to let my creature go and beam down to the planet and explore, as the gameplay for it was already in the code. also, i hope they can fix the transition of entering a planets atmosphere. i mean, it doesnt have to be faster, but maybe give it more a feel of slowly entering the atmosphere, i.e. more screen shaking, burning up in the atmosphere, screen effects, instead of feeling like i should be seeing a "Loading" text across the screen. Plus, what happened to the exaggerated mountains and buildings from far away? i loved that style choice from the early builds. sigh. oh well.

I thought the space stage was very awesome, a great way to pull the game together, and this update will be just what it needs and is missing. For those of you who judge the game before putting time into the space stage a word of advice: Don't (Ok, maybe two words?)

This addition to the game they're talking about and the entire concept for fan produced material is absolutely the next and most fascinating frontier for gaming- that really is the highlight of the game is when you can actually see and appreciate what everyone else out there is creating and share it- utterly fascinating...

I own this game for a mac, and frankly there are too many bugs present that I cant even play the game. I wish they would put some effort into fixing their issues rather than create new expansion packs. That being said, they sound pretty cool

Enkidu98 you really nailed the fundamental challenge with Spore. The creation tools are great, but they don't impact gameplay, so as you have said, there is no motivation to be creative.

Yes, you can be creative for creative's sake, and I am sure there are many people who enjoy that. For me it was fun the first time through, but when you suddenly realise that it doesn't matter if you have 1 eye or 30, 1 leg or 4, then the overall experience sours. Spore is a great graphical creativity tool, but it is not a great game.

This game was great though the space stage was a bit of a bore and the game does have some pretty nasty bugs... that said, why not just release the new creation components for free and focus on the space stage expansion instead? That way your redrum up the hype for the game with both new purchasers and by getting folks like me that haven't really touched in in the last month or so to start messing around with it again and then release an expansion at the peak of that hype? meh...I'm sure this is probably why I never would have made it in marketing. oh well.

i agree, make the parts expansion free dlc, cuz it doesnt change everything, whereas the space stage expansion definitely does. pretty much all my missions in the space stage are the same, so i'd like more missions and the ability to make my own. i would go for that expansion over the parts any day

"Yes, you can be creative for creative's sake, and I am sure there are many people who enjoy that. For me it was fun the first time through, but when you suddenly realise that it doesn't matter if you have 1 eye or 30, 1 leg or 4, then the overall experience sours."

Fair enough, but as someone who enjoys creative gameplay (IE, the intended market) I would definitely not like a game where all aspects of my design affect gameplay. It'd feel like I'm just playing another strategy game (albeit a pretty advanced one).

Since creative gameplay is so hard to come by, I'm glad the designers didn't cave in to "hardcore gamer" expectations.

What the people who harass this game's critics do not seem to understand, is that we are not mindless GTA or Halo fanboys, but at the same time, we are GAMERS, not sculptors. Creating things just for the sake of creation is all-well-and-good, but it really does not demand software, and it is not new. All you need is an imagination and SOME way of making the creature come to life, via either art or writing or other media.

What Spore promised was not ONLY creation, but rather, the ability to create things and then use them. Even when you are using something like LEGOs, who wants to make something out of them only to put them on a shelf and collect dust? My brother and I staged goofy stories with our LEGOs. So at least in the creature stage, Spore delivers a lot of what it promised. What you put on a creature DEFINITELY has an effect on how it performs, and really, that stage is the most fun I've had.

Everything falls apart after that, and as the game advances, you still create things, yes, but you see what you do having less and less effect. Vehicles were a great opportunity but horribly-implemented; all weapons have the same effect except for damage, and having a vehicle's stats being out of one-hundred percent is a bad idea that makes it harder to design what you want. When I design a tank and a police SUV, and the latter has higher armor, there's a problem. What they should have done was let you add as much armor, speed, and weapon-power as you want, and then just charged you extra money if you went over one-hundred altogether. On top of not doing that, there's the fact that religious and military vehicles do almost the exact same thing. Ultimately, with no way to design true-specialist vehicles, it just degenerates into who has the most cash.

Finally, there were just stupid mistakes not directly-related to the gameplay. No letting you restart from a phase, only giving you one save file (and making you go to the main menu whenever you reloaded it), the high-stakes of space phase, and the poor explanation the game gave, all made the experience painful later in the game. On top of it all, EA's tech support for the game has been abismal.

I am not a Halo and GTA fanboy; hell, I don't even OWN those games. However, I know enough about games in general to know what Spore should have and could have been, and it wasn't.

Bahmo: Watch the 2005 presentation again, and listen to what Will Wright is actually talking about (especially in his 20 minute long intro before he shows any gameplay). He wants to make a game about creation, not a strategy game or a model of evolution.

While I feel for the people that bought the game under the mistaken pretense that it was going to be more challenging, there's no need to imply that "sculpting" is below "true gamers".

Bahmo: Watch the 2005 presentation again, and listen to what Will Wright is actually talking about (especially in his 20 minute long intro before he shows any gameplay). He wants to make a game about creation, not a strategy game or a model of evolution.

While I feel for the people that bought the game under the mistaken pretense that it was going to be more challenging, there's no need to imply that "sculpting" is below "true gamers".
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Stop me if I'm wrong, but didn't past presentations also promise a water phase and blood?

Will's presentations really seemed to indicate that he put most work into the creasture phase, and not enough anywhere else. We hardly had any screenshots of later phases until the game came out. Also, if Will didn't want a strategy game, then why the ridiculous difficulty in space phase, and why the completely unfair punishment of ruining your whole quest if you make a fatal mistake and saved after you made that mistake? The later game FORCES use of strategy at that point.

Then, you have the fact that in many ways, creature phase DOES conform to my expectations of what the game should be, and is NOT simply about creation. There, it really does come down to how you design the creature that makes all the difference, and there's a good deal of strategy involved in things like hunting.

So I ask, why couldn't the LATER game be more like that? I never expected the game to surpass Command & Conquer as a strategy game, but I DID expect the vehicles to have at least as much variety and strategy as the creature game, and they did not. If I'm promised creation, I want REAL creation, not the superficial type. I've already given antlers to a creature and seen it gain a charge attack, and I've already given a wrist-blade to a creature and seen it gain a slash attack. So exactly how is it too much to ask that when I put certain parts on a vehicle, they ALSO function the way they should, and affect my game? Furthermore, if they wanted me to create things, why did I only get to create one vehicle per-type? That's stupid.

If you're still writing all this off to Will Wright's alleged plans to not make this a strategic game, and to only make editors superficial with no real difference to what you make, then you're ignoring both that the space phase stingently demands a virtually FLAWLESS strategy, and that the creature editor really DOES make things behave differently based on how you built them. Really, all of Spore's faults are more-likely due to half-assed oversights and laziness, and even if Will did think that making the Civilization phase so mind-numbingly lame was a good idea, that doesn't make him right. (No pun intended.)

Maxim needs to fix the problems with the Staff of Life and Supersized Wildlife sanctuaries booting the player to Windows. Major memory problems with the initial release need to be addressed. It's like putting lipstick on a pig, sorry.

"Stop me if I'm wrong, but didn't past presentations also promise a water phase and blood?"

They did show those features, but they were hardly important to the game as a whole. Not to mention they also announced that they removed them 6 mo to a year ago.

"Will's presentations really seemed to indicate that he put most work into the creasture phase, and not enough anywhere else. We hardly had any screenshots of later phases until the game came out."

I think that was for development reasons. Developers typically don't show their entire games in previews.

Anyway, the real point behind the 2005 presentation (and those after it) was content creation.

"Also, if Will didn't want a strategy game, then why the ridiculous difficulty in space phase, and why the completely unfair punishment of ruining your whole quest if you make a fatal mistake and saved after you made that mistake? The later game FORCES use of strategy at that point."

I think you are the first person I've talked to that actually thought Space was challenging =) While it does require a little more strategy than the earlier phases, the overall difficulty is still much lower than other space empire games.

"Then, you have the fact that in many ways, creature phase DOES conform to my expectations of what the game should be, and is NOT simply about creation. There, it really does come down to how you design the creature that makes all the difference, and there's a good deal of strategy involved in things like hunting.
So I ask, why couldn't the LATER game be more like that? I never expected the game to surpass Command & Conquer as a strategy game, but I DID expect the vehicles to have at least as much variety and strategy as the creature game, and they did not. If I'm promised creation, I want REAL creation, not the superficial type. I've already given antlers to a creature and seen it gain a charge attack, and I've already given a wrist-blade to a creature and seen it gain a slash attack. So exactly how is it too much to ask that when I put certain parts on a vehicle, they ALSO function the way they should, and affect my game?"

You'll notice that as the game moves on creative design matters less and less in relation to gameplay. Personally I think this was a good choice, because it really opens up the creators so that by the end of the game you can make whatever kind of spacecraft you want without having to worry about functionality.

"Furthermore, if they wanted me to create things, why did I only get to create one vehicle per-type? That's stupid."

You can create 9 vehicles overall per race. That seems like a good amount to me.

"If you're still writing all this off to Will Wright's alleged plans to not make this a strategic game, and to only make editors superficial with no real difference to what you make, then you're ignoring both that the space phase stingently demands a virtually FLAWLESS strategy, and that the creature editor really DOES make things behave differently based on how you built them. Really, all of Spore's faults are more-likely due to half-assed oversights and laziness, and even if Will did think that making the Civilization phase so mind-numbingly lame was a good idea, that doesn't make him right. (No pun intended.)"

I still don't think that strategy is very involved in this game, despite what you claim. The emphasis is very clearly on creative gameplay.